Remember the good old days when your Mac was slow enough, that if you mistakenly double clicked on a slow launching application, you could quickly quit it with 'Command-Period'?

I just discovered, if you 'Control-Click' on an application in the dock while it is starting up, you can then select Force Quit and kill the application before it completes the startup (even works with the Classic icon). Not sure how clean this is, but it gets the job done.

[Sudo Editor's Note: Force quitting an application during start may cause file corruption and damage to your application, or worse, your system. You should avoid this method whenever possible. As a side note, I am pretty sure that it was 'Option-Command-Esc' that killed an application during startup, and not Command-Period. Since I do not have OS 9 running now, I was unable to verify this.]

Reading through one of the developer docs on using Project Builder, Apple suggests it is quite acceptable to end your app by force quitting, thanks to protected memory and all that jazz. I still feel slightly hesitant, having been used to pre X for so long, but ultimately, I'm willing to trust Apple on this one.

I do this all the time with IE, mainly because I can't get URL files to open using my default browser (OW 4.1) consistently. So far, haven't noticed any problems with IE, as infrequently as I use it. I've even killed off Classic Startup once or twice, with no noticeable effects.

Try editing the Internet system prefs plist file. There's a spot where you can configure the default options. Of course, even when doing that, it would change back to IE every now and then, but it would do it less frequently. I ended up deleting IE to make all URLs open in OmniWeb.

Ah, but I've done that (editing the Internet pref pane plist file). OmniWeb is the only app in the list, and it's the default. Most everything else listens to that setting, but not dragged URL files. And there's no way to change the "Open with app" setting for them. Anyway...

There was once a time when quite a few apps could be stopped using command-period. When you hit it just after the double click the app would go away, and it was much cleaner than command-option-escape.

There was even a great system exension which built on this buy changing the cursor to a command-period just after you stared the app and then pausing, so if you changed your mind you could hit the keys and stop the app, I used to use it with great frequency :)

I too doubt that Force Quitting during a launch can cause problems for two reasons. (1) I do it all the time--no problems. and (2) Why would the option exist in such an obvious way if it were undesirable? Basically, you can just click and hold a dock icon during a launch and you get "Force Quit" instead of "Quit". Wouldn't Apple have just put a qreyed-out "Quit" or "Launching" there instead. From a programming stand point it would have been easier for them to do that I'm sure.

I love doing all those things that would cause OS 8-9 to crash... Force Quitting is a big feature (and harmless) in my book.